Urbanizacja i struktura społeczna w Afryce Czarnej : studium z socjologii rozwoju

Abstract

rapid, unprecedential development of the Black Continent cities has brought some crucial repercussions - political, economical, and social. From the point of view of sociology the examination of the interrelation between urban!zational and evolutive processes, taking place in the large social structures, acquires a particular attention. The development gives rise to some qualitatively new macrostructures, like classes and strata of a society. The present study is devoted to their Identification and to the transformations that take place in the Black Africa cities. The correctness of the author’s considerations was conditioned, on the one hand, by the choice of the most adequate conception of urbanization and, on the other hand, by the application of such theory of social classes and strata, which when referring to the conditions prevailing in Africa, would provide the most thorough explication of their origin and development. The introductory part of the study proposes a conception of the conditioned development, as a correct one and leading to some interesting issues. Hence, the basic notional categories apllied in the study are: "a situation of the conditioning" and "development conditioned". These categories represent not only quantitative and factual aspects of the evolution, out also its qualitative and genetic attributes; they extend the field of an analysis, that has covered the African countries, as well as some developed countries, with which the Africans entered into disadvantageous economical and political relations. In the African conditions the two basic trends determining the class-strata dynamics were exposed. On the one hand, the oligarchization process takes place, on the other hand - the marginalization. The. first one means that all types and forms of an authority are intercepted by small groups, intending to consolidate their own privileged in every respect position. frhrginalization means that the.large masses of people are kept to be pushed down to the extra-formal economical circulation disposed to operate in the impecunious groups. Moreover, this process brings about the minimum participation of this category of people in the political, economical and cultural life of the 31ack Africa countries. Marginalization and oligarchization give rise to the formation of small, relatively integrated groups (elites) connected with the superior economical circulation; and on the other hand - of numerous groups of proletariate (the proletarianized classe s). Biese groups are discriminated not only by their political position and economical status, but also by their attitudes toward the African still-lasting dependence on the dominions which are different. This attitude finds its repercussion either in the interception of a part of wealth transferred to the African countries or it becomes one of the causes for the underprivileged groups handicap. Apart from the elite and the proletarianized groups in the African towns emerge the middle strata and categories. They cover both the intelligentsia and the industrial proletariate, born as a result of the wide-spread, education of all levels, and of the-emerging enclaves of industry. The elites do not form as yet classes in the Marxist or the stratificational interpretation of the notion, still political and economical power monopolized by them, as well as their potentiality to acquire education make that in the African communities they are those groups that display aptness to evolve. The proletarian!zed strat^ as well as the elite do not possess all attributes of a social class. Though the former one are in every respect underprivileged as far as the share in national profits is concerned, they are not aware, as a community, of the state of this deprivation. One may suppose that with the progress of industrialization, urbanization and wide-spread education the prolerarianized strata, likewise the elite, adopt the structural attributes of a social class. The class-forming processes, once started, still proceed and are irreversible.